I am average on my weight, but I do seem to gain a bit faster, does this mean my metabolism is low? How do I boost it? P.S. I am 13 and weigh 130 is that healthy?and I also kind of lazy, but want to get more energetic...and I also kind of lazy, but want to get more energetic...
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Eat small, frequent meals. Extending the time between meals makes your body go into "starvation mode," which decreases your metabolism as a means to conserve energy and prevent starvation. While some people are able to lose weight through intermittent fasting, most people generally eat less overall when they eat small, frequent meals. In addition to having four to six small meals per day[6] eating healthy snacks will also increase metabolism.[2] Different activities burn different quantities of calories, but the important thing is to raise your heart rate and sustain the activity for approximately thirty minutes.Boost metabolism in the long run with weight training. Muscle burns more calories than fat does (73 more calories per kilogram per day, to be exact)[2] so the more muscle you build, the higher your resting metabolic rate (RMR) will be. Every muscle cell that you gain is like a little factory that constantly burns calories for you, even while you sleep, and revs up when you exercise.This is the only way to increase RMR, which accounts for 60 to 70 percent of the calories you burn daily.[7]From a recent conservative estimate [8] one can extrapolate that in one year a person with 2.2 kg more muscle will burn calories corresponding to 1 kg of fat due to this muscle mass. Young healthy men typically have 35 to 50 kg of muscle mass [9] so the most muscular men in the range burn extra calories relative to the least muscular corresponding to 6.8 kg (15 pounds) of fat per year.Recalcuate your RMR as needed. Your metabolism will slow down as you lose weight. The more weight your body is carrying, the more calories your body has to burn in order to sustain itself, even at rest. When you begin restricting your calorie intake, you'll lose weight relatively easily because your body's high caloric needs are not being met. But after you begin to shed the weight, the body has less mass to carry and thus needs fewer calories. In order to continue losing weight, you will have to restrict your caloric intake even further in order to maintain a difference between what your body needs and what you are providing.[2] Let's go through a hypothetical example:You are 200 lbs and your body needs 2500 calories a day to sustain itself. You cut down your caloric intake to 2000 calories.You lose 25 lbs. Now your body only needs 2250 calories to sustain itself because it's carrying less weight.If you continue with your 2000 calorie per day diet (the diet that helped you lose the first 25 lbs) you will still be losing, but at half the speed. In order to maintain a steady weight loss you will need to reduce your caloric intake further. However, it is at the utmost importance you do not try to consume fewer calories than your RMR!Another possible problem: If you continue with your 2000 calorie per day diet (the diet that helped you lose the first 25 lbs) you may actually gain weight back because of varying levels of exercise. Let's say you lose 50 lbs. on your 2000 calorie diet. Your sustaining calories might be 1800. You're actually consuming enough calories to gain weight, but how would that happen if you had stayed on your diet? This can happen when your exercise has burned through many calories. If you slowed on exercise at this point you would actually gain weight again. The point here is to recheck your RMR when you lose weight and compare it to your consumption.
